


The Missionary Position

by Cameo (CameoSF)



Category: Nate and Hayes
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 22:53:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1758993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CameoSF/pseuds/Cameo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The part of the story Hayes didn't include in his interview.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Missionary Position

**Author's Note:**

> To be read with a Texas accent :)

            My name is Bully Hayes, and once again I am in prison on some island outpost of nowhere, awaiting hanging.  The last time I was in this situation, there was a fellow here who deemed my story worth telling.  He talked as if I was the last of a breed, claiming steamships were going to replace the tall ship, along with the tall ship pirate.  The good lord only knows what came of his version.  The writer was not what you’d call an adventurous man; I knew there were aspects of my history that he would not consider proper for his tale, so I skipped over them.  This time I’m the one telling my story, and I have nothing to lose by relating it all.

            The parts I refer to concern a young couple I had the fortune to transport on my ship some years back.  They were a handsome couple, the lady by far the loveliest I’d set eyes on since calling the South Seas my home.  She seemed to find something in me to admire as well, although I was older than her in years, and rougher than her in ways.  The gentleman however was of a missionary bent, and seeing as how he was also her fiancé, I thought it advisable to set them ashore where they wished and not to complicate matters. 

            The next I heard of the lovebirds was when my crew spotted the young man hailing us from a reef miles from any civilized or uncivilized shore.  How he’d gotten himself there I couldn’t imagine, and we brought him aboard the Rona curious to hear his tale.  To my amazement, his first move was to attack me and call me murderer.  It was a feeble attempt and he was soon restrained, whereupon he told us of the events that had taken place at his uncle’s mission.  His next move was to faint.

            Now, Captain Ben Pease was the true murderous bastard behind the attack that had left the young man’s relatives dead, their natives captured, his fiancée missing, and himself knocked unconscious.  Pease and I had not exactly been on speaking terms for years.  He’d avoided my path, and I’d made no effort to cross his, even though I knew he was arranging that I took the blame for most of his illegal and immoral activities.  It just hadn’t seemed worth the bother to hunt him down - till now.  The thought of the young and innocent Sophie a prisoner in his hands made my blood boil, and I gave the order at once to sail to Samoa, where Pease was most likely to have taken the natives to be sold.  My crew did not protest, so I knew they were eager to face Pease down as well.

            The trip took several days, and during that time, our missionary recovered from his travails.  He went by the name of Mr. Nathaniel Williamson, but I shortened it to Nate, figuring he could be killed in the time it would take someone to call out that mouthful.  He was, as I said, a gentleman, born in the New World, but educated in England.  On the voyage out he’d suffered mightily from sea sickness, and I think he was the most surprised of us to find that had passed.  His sojourn on the reef had put some color in his cheeks, and his hair, once slicked back as society dictated, now hung loose and long.  It was a honey-blond shade almost as lovely as Sophie’s, and I was hard put upon not to run a handful of it through my fingers every time I saw him. 

            By the time we reached Samoa, Nate had toughened up considerably.  He was expected to do his share of the work, and he took to it better than any of us expected.  Mr. Blake had found him some clothes to wear, and the sight of Nate clad all in black was enough to make me lose focus at least momentarily as to why he was on board.  Mr. Blake, may he rest in peace, knew of my weakness for blonds dressed in black.

            Well, we survived Samoa, which is more than I can say for Pease’s crew.  Nate nearly got his pretty face smashed in when he attempted to disrupt a slave auction single-handedly.  My man Fong was kept busy tailing him and dispatching anyone who tried to harm him.  Unfortunately, Nate turned up at precisely the wrong moment, and Pease himself was able to escape taking Sophie with him.  On the other hand, it was Nate who’d sneaked onto Pease’s ship and found out where he was taking her, so I could hardly blame him for his bad timing.  We had more urgent concerns, namely trying to catch the armored steamship Pease had escaped on.  The Rona was a faithful old girl, but she wasn’t up to the chase.  We decided to borrow Pease’s ship instead.

            I have some fond memories of Pease’s ship.  She was larger than the Rona, and faster, but she also had more amenities.  The captain’s cabin was twice the size I was used to, and contained a store of wine that would have made a saloon owner proud.  Nate joined me there for a drink soon after we’d set sail, feeling bad that he’d interfered with Sophie’s rescue.  Once he’d shown me her note, I realized he felt even worse that she’d turned to me for help rather than him.  The fact that she believed him to be dead didn’t make much difference.  I kept the wine flowing in hopes it’d cheer him up.

            That was why we got into that silly argument over who Sophie should choose, and that was where I began to censor what I told the fellow writing my story. 

            Nate was easily drunker than I was.  He’d confessed that he wasn’t a drinking man, as if I thought otherwise, but that didn’t stop him from tipping back each glass as fast as I poured.  We finally determined that we should let Sophie make up her own mind about us, thinking that a novel idea at the time.  Then Nate wondered aloud what we’d do if she didn’t choose either of us?

            I couldn’t have kept a straight face to save my life.  He just looked so tipsy and serious.

            “Then we’d have to make do with each other, I guess,” I said. 

            “Each other?” He frowned a little, as if I’d left him behind.  

            I raised my drink. “To Sophie.  May her choice be the right one, and may the loser find comfort wherever he can.”

            Nate drank to that, to my further delight.  Then he set down his glass and opened his collar. “Isn’t it awfully warm in here?”

            “You are right.  It is warm,” I agreed.  That was the truth; in the South Seas, below deck is always hot and sticky.  On deck there’s a breeze, if you’re lucky, but I hadn’t opened the casements down there and wasn’t about to.  I took off my shirt instead.

            Nate watched me, eyes a bit wider than usual.  When I sat down again, he didn’t comment, but neither did he follow my example, which I’d hoped he would.

            “That’s better,” I remarked, picking up my glass with a smile.  Now, I know it is immodest of me to say so, but I’ve been told my smile can have an effect on people.  It was not my habit to deliberately try for that particular effect, but it was clear that my ship was going to be ready to launch long before his, if you catch my drift, and drastic measures needed to be taken.

            “What shall we drink to now?” Nate asked, looking everywhere but at me.

            I hooked one foot around the leg of his chair and pulled it closer.  Nate looked up in surprise, spilling wine down his front and not even noticing.

            “That’ll need washing,” I said, nodding at the stain.  He glanced down, then remained still while I unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it off.  His skin was milky white; I guessed it had seldom if ever seen the sun.  When I laid one hand on his chest, the contrast was striking.

            “You’re so brown,” he murmured.  At last he made a move: he placed both his hands on my shoulders as if to compare the colors.  He sounded a bit breathless. “And so strong.”

            I have to admit I am strong, but he had nothing to be ashamed of.  Despite his paleness, he wasn’t scrawny.  His chest was well-muscled, his shoulders broad.  His arms were long and firm, and I’d already admired his thighs enough to know they were just as fine.

            With that thought, I began to stroke his throat, one thumb playing over his Adam’s apple.  Nate’s breathing was uneven.  For a moment he simply stared at his hands, then he slid one behind my neck where he could tangle his fingers in my hair.  He still didn’t look me in the face.

            I reached out my other hand and gently massaged one nipple.  That seemed to do the trick.  With a gasp, Nate leaned closer, and I was able to pull him into a kiss.  His arms went around me of their own free will, and after the barest hesitation he began to kiss back.  I didn’t have to coax anything out of him after that.

            Several minutes later, or maybe a half hour - I can’t be sure since I wasn’t exactly an innocent bystander here - I moved back to let him breathe.  His eyes were half-closed, his hair all mussed, and I didn’t care if he _was_ a virgin, I just had to have him.  When I stood up, he came too, his arms still around my neck.  The romantic in me suddenly took over, and I picked him up in my arms and carried him across the room to the bunk, for all the world as if he was my bride.  I was grinning when I set him down, and Nate was too, wide awake now and ready for more.

            “I must have lain out in the sun too long the day Pease attacked,” he commented, his words hardly blurred by the wine at all. “My brains must have melted.  I can’t think why else I would be doing this.”

            “Either that, or the blow to your head shook them loose,” I said equably.  A moment later I was all over him, and brains didn’t have a thing to do with it.

            We undressed each other as best we could while kissing again.  Nate’s whole body was the same shade of cream, and mine was very near the same shade of brown, thanks to some time I spent running around naked on one of the Fiji Islands where the native girls were unusually friendly.  I could tell Nate got a charge out of seeing me, and I sure didn’t need to tell him what I was feeling.  My member was about as hard as it could get even before I had my breeches off.

            “You’re strong all over,” he breathed upon catching sight of it.  I laughed and stretched out on top of him, grateful that Pease had installed a good, sturdy bunk.  For a bit longer we kissed.  When I could tell that he was as ready as I was, I got up and rummaged quickly through my gear for a jar of salve Mr. Blake had picked up somewhere.  It was an herbal concoction meant to heal sunburn, but I’d found it worked just as well where the sun didn’t shine.

            Nate waited trustfully, and didn’t question my intentions even while I applied the salve to him and to myself.  He’d sobered up some by the time we were ready, so I hadn’t the heart to turn him over.  Figuring virgins deserved to do it face to face the first time, I spread his legs further and positioned myself.  His eyes were wide now, but he didn’t struggle when I entered him, just gasped softly and clutched me to him.  On my second thrust he whimpered.  On my third, he cried out loud and his legs wrapped around my back like a vice.

            “What was _that_?” he exclaimed, the last coherent words he managed for while.  It’d been ages since I’d been in his position, but I remembered what it felt like to have that special place stroked.  I did so now, while Nate’s moans of pleasure turned to groans and then to wails.  He kept trying to kiss me in between noises, and that, his immovable grip, and the sensation of thrusting into his very tight, very welcoming body pushed me over the edge well before I’d planned it.  I came with my own hoarse cry, then had to hold Nate down as he followed.  It was a good thing my crew knew me, or we’d have had a grand time explaining all the sound effects later.

            Afterwards we were both out of breath.  I had to pry Nate’s legs loose so that we could get comfortable; once he was lying flat he might as well have been a rag doll.  I’d never seen anyone who’d been so in need of relaxation.

            “You all right?” I asked when he showed signs of returning to life.  I was still mostly on top of him since the bunk wasn’t wide enough to lie side by side.

            “Yes.” He was drenched in sweat, his hair a full shade darker.   I was soaked as well, and didn’t mind one bit. “I had no idea it could be like that.”

            “It’s a well kept secret,” I agreed.

            His eyes drooped then, so I let him sleep.  Between the wine and all the activity, he was wiped out, and since I fully intended to keep him awake half the night, he needed to recoup all the energy he could.

            The rest of the voyage to Ponape went smoothly.  On deck we kept a watch out for that German warship, and below deck Nate and I went at it every chance we got.  He was pretty much insatiable once he realized what he wanted, and I had no complaints.  We always did it face to face, and I’m not sure Nate ever caught on that there was another way.  I indulged him because we both knew our time was limited; as soon as we found Sophie we would have to bow to her choice.  Privately I expected her to choose Nate; they had history together, and now that he’d lost his missionary ways, he’d become quite an exciting young man.  I was prepared to let them go, figuring there’d be other fish in the sea for me.  There always had been.

            At Ponape things did not go according to plan, although we rescued Sophie from becoming the sacrifice of the day.  She was as lovely as I remembered, her hair long and shining, her eyes huge and glowing, especially when she looked at Nate.  The changes in him took her by surprise; the changes in her took us both by surprise.  Within moments of boarding Pease’s ship, she’d discarded her dress for breeches, and from then on she fought beside us just like one of the crew.  There was no time to request she choose between Nate and me.  We were too busy dodging the German vessel’s cannon fire and then boarding and disabling her.

            Afterwards, after the Germans were defeated and Pease succeeded in blowing the ship to kingdom come, we returned to Samoa to reclaim the Rona.  It was a tense trip, since Nate and I were off-limits to each other, and Sophie had yet to articulate her decision.  If she’d fathomed what had gone on between us, she never gave a hint. 

            In Samoa, I sent some of my crew aboard the Rona and we sailed both ships away, just in case Nate took it into his head to interrupt any other slave auctions.  He’d told Sophie about that, and she was as outraged as he.  I could see the two of them with a new mission - if they stayed together.

            It was the night after we left Samoa that we broke out the wine again.  It was late and Sophie had already retired.  Nate and I had been perfect gentleman ever since she’d come aboard, sleeping in separate cabins and not so much as touching each other in passing.  I’d noticed Nate watching me longingly once or twice, and I have to confess that I’d given him more than a few wistful looks.  When he turned up at my cabin that night, I knew we’d at least have to keep the noise down.

            “Has she said anything yet?” I asked as I popped the cork on a fresh bottle.  I hadn’t actually sampled any of Pease’s wine since the evening Nate and I had gotten tipsy.  I’m not a man who drinks alone.

            Nate looked uncommonly morose. “No.”

            “She’ll need to speak up soon.  The wind is taking us south, but we need a destination.”

            “I know.” He accepted a glass and sipped without interest. “She considers you her hero.  I think she’s going to choose you.”

            “Me?  A hero?  I’d say she considers us both equally her heroes.” I straddled a chair and faced him, thinking it could be the last time.  Nate sank into the same chair he’d occupied before.

            “If she does choose you, I won’t mind.  I mean, you deserve her.  And she deserves you.” He fell silent, although he clearly had something more to say.  Finally he drained his wine and faced me. “The thing is, if she chooses you, I’ll lose you both.”

            Well, there were alarm bells going off in my head, but I ignored them.  He just looked so darned earnest.

            “I promise you, if she chooses me, I won’t desert you,” I heard myself say. “Not till you find yourself someone else.”

            Nate tossed that around his mind for a minute.  His face brightened. “Then I’ll make the same promise.  If she chooses me, I won’t desert you either.”

            “And if she doesn’t choose either of us--” I began.

            “--neither of us will desert her till she finds someone else,” he finished with a grin.  He offered his hand to shake on it, which struck me as the funniest thing I’d ever seen him do.  I pulled him to me instead and we laughed as we hugged.  A few minutes later we were kissing, and it was as if nothing had changed since the trip to Ponape.  Still, we did remember to be extra quiet.

            The next day, Sophie chose Nate.  I wasn’t devastated; as I said, I’d been prepared for this.  Nate was the more upset of the two of us, even when I gave them the Rona as a wedding present.  He couldn’t come up with any reason to stay on board Pease’s ship - which I’d decided to rechristen the Sophie - and was visibly stunned when I suggested they get on their way by nightfall.  Sophie was full of plans to track down and bring other slavers to justice, and normally Nate would have been just as eager to get started.  It was only myself that was slowing them down.

            “You two take care of each other,” I told them when it came time to cross over to the Rona.  A few of my men had volunteered to steer them to a safe port where they could assemble their own crew.  They were waiting now to transport Sophie and Nate over in a pulley chair.

            Sophie had tears in her dear eyes as she took my hand. “We will.  You’ll take care of yourself too, won’t you, Captain?”

            “Of course.” I kissed her hand, then squeezed her fingers before releasing them.  Into her other hand I placed the little bag she’d left with me upon our first parting.  It contained a small inheritance she’d wished to invest in my shipping concern, which I’d accepted purely out of a desire to see her again. “Your ventures will be more in need of this than mine.”

            After a second, she nodded.  She rose up on tiptoe to kiss me on the cheek, then turned to seat herself on the pulley chair.  My men began hauling her across.

            Nate held out his hand next.  For a minute there I thought he was going to pretend we barely knew each other, but as soon as I touched him, he was in my arms.  We didn’t kiss because I consider that sort of thing private, but I did get to run my fingers through his honey-gold hair one last time.  He did the same, and I let him until I heard him catch his breath in a sob.

            “None of that,” I said immediately, because the last thing I needed was to have him crying on my shoulder.  I didn’t think I could take it. “You’re not deserting me.  Now go be good to her.”

            Nate straightened up, and he had composed himself pretty well. “I will.  Thank you, for everything,” he said, meeting my eyes.

            “You’re entirely welcome,” I replied.  He produced one of his lop-sided smiles, which was how I preferred to remember him anyway.

            The pulley chair was back on our ship by then.  Nate sat down in it with a little grin that told me he recalled his first experience in it.  He didn’t get dunked this time; I watched him all the way across to where Sophie waited, wondering in passing whether she’d been watching us.  In the end, it didn’t concern me any longer, so I waved a final farewell and went below to my cabin.

            Well, that was the last I expected to see of my lovebirds.  I turned to gun-running a few months later more out of disgust with the colonials than out of sympathy for their victims, since I knew some of those victims well enough to avoid them.  Dealing with the natives was a mistake, and I’m truly sorry my crew had to pay for it.  I lost many good men that day, men I’d sailed with for years.  It didn’t seem right that I should live when they’d died, and I’d almost resigned myself to swinging at the Spaniard’s hands.  I just wished it wasn’t at Pease’s hands.  How the bastard survived the demolition of that steamship, I may never know.

            I went to my fate bravely, thinking there was no one left in the world to miss me anyway, and didn’t pay any attention to the clergyman other than to reflect that he had a miserable accent.  I’d completely forgotten my would-be Reverend.  When I saw Nate’s face under that hat, I suddenly knew we’d make it.  It wasn’t easy, but my will to live returned with a vengeance, and we battled our way off the scaffolding and over the prison wall.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when Sophie appeared there in a nun’s outfit.  There wasn’t time to greet either of them properly; we hit the road just lengths ahead of the militia and were chased clear to the edge of a cliff.  I still don’t believe that rope contraption worked, but it got us down to sea level where they had a boat waiting.  Further out, I was delighted to see the old Rona.

            Finally out of range of the Spaniard’s weapons, I stopped them both from hurrying into the dinghy.  Sophie blushed when I kissed her, but in the past eighteen months she’d loosened up a bit.  She kissed me back, then with a look at Nate, stepped into the boat.  I turned to Nate, who displayed the most self-satisfied smile I’d ever seen on any living thing other than a cat. 

            “Thank you,” I said, drawing him to me for a long kiss.  He returned it thoroughly, only pulling free when we heard Sophie call out a warning.   We separated enough to climb into the dinghy, which Sophie had underway immediately.  We reached the Rona safely and set sail long before the Spaniards could ride back to harbor and launch one of their own vessels.

            I was with them for six months that time.  It turned out they’d never married, although they’d become lovers long ago.  They spent their time raiding slavers’ camps, liberating the victims and transporting the criminals to the nearest law-abiding port for trial.  When they’d heard of my pending execution, they hadn’t hesitated to come to my rescue, which just about wrung my heart. 

            That first night, on the Rona, I was reminded of what else Nate was capable of wringing out of me.  We slept together almost every night we were together, and I can say truthfully that Sophie did not begrudge us a minute.  She and Nate had an understanding, which included me, but only on his side.  While I’d have been in her gracious bed in an instant, that was not the way she wanted it.  We always, to the end, did what she wanted.

            It was Sophie herself that finally separated us.  One day she announced that they needed to return to England to take care of some family business, and Nate was agreeable.  They were both disappointed when I flatly refused to go along.  I’d been in the South Seas half my life by then, and I had no desire to return to civilization, even temporarily.  My home was at sea, on the Rona as it turned out; they left her to me when they departed. 

            Thus it was I found myself back in my old business, carrying freight, passengers, contraband, whatever needed hauling.  I spent a couple years at it, never running into anyone a fraction as entertaining as my lovebirds.  I was transporting a shipment of native beads and shells when I was boarded by the militia, French this time.  Pease’s transgressions had finally caught up with me, and I was tried and found guilty of smuggling and murder.  Now, I never claimed to be an upstanding citizen, but I was innocent of these particular crimes.  My word wasn’t worth much however, and Pease was nowhere around, so I didn’t even have the satisfaction of punching his face in.  Instead I went to prison to wait out the month till my hanging.

            Tomorrow is the day.  While I’m not ready to die, I am ready to get out of this cell, so I guess it’s all the same.  I’d like to think my sweet Reverend will arrive in time and that Sister Sophie will be backing him up with fresh horses, but I suspect my luck has run its course.  If they come, fine - I am ready and willing to reclaim my freedom.  If they don’t come, then that’s fine too - I just wanted to get my true story down before the end, in case anyone out there is interested in the life, and death, of Bully Hayes, so-called last of the tall ship pirates.


End file.
